It’s so cold and blustery outside I had to suit up just to dig around in the freezer for some chili ingredients! Can’t see it in the pictures, but the wind is gusty and the snow is blowing. It’s frigid out there. My ears are still frozen. Rob’s really wishing he had his shop built …
Springs at Wild Ozark I’ve written before about how we are dependent on our wild Ozark water. This is a post from last year around this time of year and it’s one of my favorites. This activity of inspecting the tank and lines is one that occurs at least annually here and usually more often than that. …
2nd Friday after Winter Solstice This essay on whether animals plan ahead is the second of my weekly #RandomNatureConnection posts. Read more about this meme here and consider joining us if you love nature, philosophical debate, and blog about it. Here’s a short Tweet you can use to invite others: Join us for #RandomNatureConnection with …
Random Nature Connection – Do Animals Plan Ahead? Read More »
At first glance it might be hard to imagine how my fiction could be influenced by nature. There are three things that make it so. Maybe there’s more than three, but these are the ones that stand out for me. Setting, Plants and Predators Specifically, it’s the places where the stories take place, the relationships that …
Dripping Faucet Nature’s Water Water is such an integral part of nature, but we don’t often recognize it as such when it comes from a faucet. All water originates from nature, even water from the tap in a city. Our water source is home-grown Ozark spring water. We have a spring that feeds the …
I don’t often get in the mood to write poetry, but this time of year it sometimes happens. Not sure what it is, perhaps the approach of mid-winter, perhaps the shifted angles of light.
Here’s the cover and sample page for “Forest Companions”, the last book in the “Into the Ginseng Wood” series. Should be at Amazon by the weekend! If you want to catch up on the others, heres a link to the first one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OFAMAS6. They open into full page photos, no double-tapping required! Click on the image …
What is the first thought that enters your mind on waking? Are you savoring vestiges of pleasant dreams, or do you wake up already planning the day…or is there a sense of ‘oh no, not again” ? Sometimes the first thing I do is glance to see if the sun is up yet. Depending on …
Frosty hills are pretty and the Ozark hills are sporting white capes this morning! See the distant mountain with the white hoar frost? The 4-wheeler was also decorated. A light coat of ice had the key and brake lock stiff and I had to clear the encrusted seat so I could sit. Took a very chilly ride …
The Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test™ was a fun, free little online test, sort of like the Myers-Briggs test to determine personality types: https://www.humanmetrics.com/index.htm#intro. After you’re done and when you click on the “Career Choices” info button, it gives some details about the kinds of careers that would be most satisfying for your type. I found …
My Results from the Humanmetrics Jung Typology Test™ Read More »
An Author’s Corrections: It’s Broomsedge, not Fescue When I wrote No Qualms I described the shadeling as having hair that resembled fescue. That’s because I’d always thought the grass I had in mind was fescue. Recently I learned that it is in fact a grass commonly called broomsedge (possibly Andropogon virginicus). It might be a …
This year we’ve been proactive about a stocked freezer and our supply of firewood. Last year and the years since we’ve moved up here, we’ve always had a steady supply of venison, but we seem to always need firewood at the worst times. Last year, I remember waiting impatiently for the temperature to get above freezing …
For you from Wild Ozark™ 🙂 Grab a cuppa & enjoy! A Misty Day in the Ozarks One of my favorite kinds of trees, the beech, keeps leaves long after the others have disrobed and gone into winter’s sleep. Almost all of the beeches I see are very young. This one is older than most. …
Out here we have a healthy balance between predator and prey. Squirrels crowd the treetops, mice are at home in sheds and even in our house if we aren’t diligent. Snakes lurk everywhere. Predator and Prey Coyotes are plentiful. The dogs break into a discordant chorus when they hear their wild cousins yapping on the …
Special Trees Two special trees grace the dirt road where I live. There are more trees like this here and there on our own acreage, tree-beings, or trees that appear and do more than trees appear to normally do. Of course, the knowing that these trees “do” anything other than normal tree “being” is what …
Where do Writers get Ideas? People often ask me where I get ideas for my stories. I’d never really paid attention to it much, because I’ve always had a fairly active imagination and it comes naturally to think of the things I write. Where do writers get ideas? But I did notice something the other …
Where do Writers get Ideas? My Ideas Come from the Gaps Read More »
First it was the frost flowers. They showed up last week during our first really cold spell. Then yesterday as we were on our way home from grocery shopping the first sleet began. Soon after the plinking sounds of tiny ice balls on the windshield gave way to the silent brush of snowflakes. Winter …
Today’s my birthday and it’s the coldest one I can ever remember having! Temps have barely gotten above freezing today and snow clouds are building overhead. I’ve been working hard since I got up this morning to bring this new site online before the end of the day. It might not happen today though, because …
The first time I saw frost flowers here in northwest Arkansas, about nine years ago now, I thought they were trash collected at the base of weeds on the roadsides. And then I saw a photo at Cloudland and the mystery was solved and a fascination began. As if I don’t already have enough fascination …
